Wednesday, 31 July 2013

Local councils are set to lose their say on whether controversial shale gas harvesting goes on in their area as new planning guidelines were published last week. After allegedly causing unusual seismic activity in the United States, campaigners have vehemently opposed exploiting shales gas reserves in the British countryside, and so far have been able to focus on local councils to monitor what activity takes place in their area.

Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Official energy statistics published today by the UK government report that the UK has missed its indicative renewable energy target for 2011-12.

As a result the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will have to submit an amended national renewable energy action plan to the European Commission by 30th June 2014, setting out measures to get the country back ‘on track’.

The means that the UK is the only Member State which has failed to meet both 2011 and 2013 indicative targets and which is expected not to reach its 2020 target.

“This is a near miss. Had government interfered less with its existing policies for biomass power, stuck to its timetable on the Renewable Heat Incentive, or laid out a clear framework for biofuels, then it would almost certainly have met its indicative target,” commented Renewable Energy Association (REA) chief executive Gaynor Hartnell.

The 2011-12 UK figure shows that 3.94% of energy comes from renewables, 0.1% short of the indicative target of 4.04%. Meanwhile, the majority of the EU-27 had already met their 2011-12 indicative targets by the end of 2011. According to the latest EUROSTAT data, the UK remains 25th out of the 27 EU Member States on the share of renewables in its heating system, power supply and transport fuels. The UK’s 2020 target is one of the lowest across the EU-27 (15%), and requires one of the highest annual growth rates (16.5% year-on-year to 2020).

“It’s best to get it out of the water now or it’ll start getting grazed by the little beasties,” says Lars Brunner as he hauls 50kg of glistening, translucent kelp from the dark waters of the Sound of Kerrera into the boat. The long summer days mean the seaweed is rapidly storing up sugars, which snails and barnacles find delicious.

“You can eat it, but whether it tastes good is debatable,” says Brunner. He is also after the sugars, but for a different reason. His work at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (Sams), with parallel projects in Ireland and Norway, is part of a growing worldwide effort aiming to turn the centuries-old seaweed industry into a major source of environmentally friendly biofuels.

The seaweed is farmed in a picture-perfect sea fjord that once hosted a fish farm, near Oban in Argyll, where craggy, green hills overlook the loch. “It’s a very good site,” says Brunner. “It has really nice currents; the seaweed needs the water to flow over the blades so they can capture the nutrients they need.”

Many millions of pounds are being invested in seaweed research from Vietnam to Israel to Chile because producing biofuels in the sea removes at a stroke many of the serious problems with conventional biofuels. Though important as greener alternatives to oil, many biofuels are produced from food crops, such as corn and sugar, which drives up global prices in a world where a billion people are already hungry. Biofuel production also consumes increasingly scarce freshwater and the worst examples – those from palm oil – can produce more carbon dioxide than diesel.

“Seaweed does not have any of those problems,” says Phil Kerrison, another marine scientist, back at the Sams labs. Seaweed farming has even been shown to clean up the pollution from fish farms and kelp grows far more quickly than land plants, turning sunlight into chemical energy five times more efficiently.

Kerrison pulls a square of plush red carpet from a tank, strewn with the tan-coloured kelp. “Carpet is very good as a growth substrate,” he says. “It has a rough surface, but then it also holds a lot of water making it very heavy and putting strain on the moorings.” His task is to find the best material to farm the seaweed on, but he is cautious of revealing too much as there are significant commercial interests at stake.

Monday, 29 July 2013

A trial of the largest battery in Europe, which proponents hope will transform the UK electricity grid and boost renewable energy is due to start in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

The trial of cutting-edge energy storage technology will test new methods of capturing electricity for release over long periods, evening out the bumps and troughs of supply and demand that plague the electricity grid. Finding ways of storing power from wind and solar generation is key to maintaining a constant source of energy.

But storage technology has been difficult to translate from small devices such as batteries and laptops to the enormous scale needed to balance demand and supply on the national grid.

At the electricity substation serving Leighton Buzzard, three companies are hoping to deploy one of the biggest batteries ever constructed, using lithium manganese technology. The £18.7m project will form the centrepiece of a trial of energy storage that could have far-reaching implications for the renewables sector. The three companies – S&C Electric Europe, Samsung SDI and Younicos – have gained £13.2m backing from the UK taxpayer for their 6 megawatt capacity battery installation, which will absorb and release energy to meet the demands of the grid. The first results are not expected until 2016.

Almost 40% of farmers are using clean energy across the UK, compared to just 5% in 2010, according to a new survey. However, the majority feel the full potential of renewables is not being met.

The joint research, Farms as power stations by Nottingham Trent University, Forum for the Future and Farmers Weekly, collected the opinions of around 700 farmers.

Although a large number have chosen to adopt renewable sources of energy – especially solar, wind and biomass energy – 76% believes renewable energy can still achieve a lot more in the agriculture industry.

Professor Eunice Simmons, the dean of Nottingham Trent University’s School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, said, “It’s very positive news that renewables are becoming more popular with UK farmers – and this trend looks set to continue over the coming years.

Re-commissioned mothballed power plants will help keep the lights on, according to the energy minister.

Michael Fallon told the BBC’s Sunday Politics there would not be blackouts or energy rationing UK because mothballed plants will help meet the capacity demand, with margins expected to tighten by the middle of the decade.

He said: “They’re [National Grid] looking – and they should be looking – at some recently mothballed plant to make sure the operators of that plant are ready, if the plant is needed, to bring it onto the system.”

System operator, National Grid, has proposed that energy intensive industries reduce their power demand between 4pm and 8pm during the winter at times of peak demand, to ensure there are not blackouts.

Friday, 26 July 2013

Industrial gas users could be paid by the National Grid to turn off some or all of their machinery if the UK ever faces a gas supply “emergency”.

Under new plans by the regulator Ofgem, large gas consumers will be able to put themselves forward to cut their gas demand, in contracts bid for in advance, if there is a shortage.

The payments are one strand of a shake-up to the rules to make sure the UK can always get enough gas. Since the North Sea reserves have dwindled, the UK depends significantly on gas shipments from overseas.

The current contingency plan for a crisis – for example if a shipper fails to buy enough gas to cover its UK customers’ obligations – it has to pay charges to the National Grid, the national gas pipeline operator. This is called the “cash-out” price and it is frozen at a relatively low level. On top of this, gas supplies could be restricted to customers.

RenewableUK deputy chief executive Maf Smith said: “This important new research shows just how valuable renewable energy is to farmers at a tough time for crop yields.

“Farmers have always worked with the countryside and depend on the weather to make their living and it’s good to see small-scale wind turbines playing their part in this. The UK’s small wind industry leads the world, and there’s a beautiful synchronicity in turbines manufactured in Loughborough turning in fields in Lincolnshire.”

The research did, however, find that some 80% of the 700 farmers quizzed wanted to see consistent government policy and more than half said the cumbersome and costly planning process is a problem.

The UK is in danger of missing its 2020 target to get 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources, experts have warned.

According to research coordinated by the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) on 11 EU member states, only three are on track to meet their targets: Austria, Italy and Sweden.

The “Keep on Track” report expresses “serious doubts” about whether Bulgaria, Germany, Greece and Portugal will hit theirs, while Belgium, Poland, Spain and the UK are expected to fail.

“It’s plain sailing for the 21 Member States who have already achieved their 2012 targets in 2011,” said EREC president Rainer Hinrichs-Rahlwes.

“However, there are worrying signs on the horizon as current growth rates are insufficient to meet the 2020 targets. EU Member States should create and implement predictable and stable legislative frameworks for renewable energy sources.”

Thursday, 25 July 2013

ScottishPower and SSE have unveiled plans which say they will improve services, provide lower prices and create more jobs.

ScottishPower has unveiled a £5.2bn investment, which could see 2,500 new jobs created.

Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution (SSE) plan to reduce distribution costs by 10% in 2015.

The proposals aim to improve reliability and costs to energy customers.

ScottishPower has made plans that will see cables and substations that keep the lights on for more than 3.5m customers in Central Scotland, Merseyside and North & Mid Wales being renewed and maintained.

Its proposal to Ofgem outlines a major role in supporting the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy.

A major focus of the investment includes the reinforcement of power lines and substations in rural areas, to combat the effects of severe weather.

New jobs

To carry out the required work the company said it would invest £90m on recruitment and training to make sure the work is completed.

Together with other projects, the total number of jobs created by the company in the next decade could rise to about 4,000.

To make sure targets are met, work has begun on recruitment from schools, colleges and universities.

Frank Mitchell, CEO of ScottishPower Energy Networks, said “We have a unique opportunity to completely modernise our infrastructure and create a blueprint to support growth for generations to come.

“This £5.2bn investment will create thousands of highly-skilled jobs, as we will need a new generation of engineers and technicians to deliver the upgrades.”

As part of the restructuring, plans are in place to provide better compensation payments to customers who experience interruptions and are without power.

Britain’s risk of electricity blackouts by 2015 is more serious than previously thought, regulator Ofgem warned on Thursday.

The country’s spare electricity supply margin could fall as low as 2 percent in 2015/16, down from around 14 percent currently.

Last year Ofgem gave an estimate of 4 percent.

“Electricity supplies are set to tighten faster than previously expected in the middle of this decade,” Ofgem said in a report, adding that the chance of supply disruptions would rise to one in 12 years in 2015/16 from one in 47 years now.

Britain has seen a vast number of power plants close and being mothballed due to emissions-reduction policies and the loss-making economics of gas-fired power plants.

Ofgem said it had lowered its estimate of the amount of conventional power capacity expected for 2015/16 by more than 2,000 megawatts due plant closures and delays in building new ones.

While it played down the actual likelihood of blackouts, saying the market managed the problem effectively, the regulator said its findings showed that urgent action is needed.

Britain’s network operator National Grid (LSE: NG.L – news) and the government on Thursday outlined proposals to better manage electricity demand to balance the market at times of tight supply.

Almost 40% of farmers are using clean energy across the UK, compared to just 5% in 2010, according to a new survey. However, the majority feel the full potential of renewables is not being met.

The joint research, Farms as power stations by Nottingham Trent University, Forum for the Future and Farmers Weekly, collected the opinions of around 700 farmers.

Although a large number have chosen to adopt renewable sources of energy – especially solar, wind and biomass energy – 76% believes renewable energy can still achieve a lot more in the agriculture industry.

Professor Eunice Simmons, the dean of Nottingham Trent University’s School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, said, “It’s very positive news that renewables are becoming more popular with UK farmers – and this trend looks set to continue over the coming years.

“It’s clear, however, that more needs to be done by the government in terms of communicating the benefits, developing a more coherent policy and addressing conflicting messages.”

Among the challenges outlined by respondents are the high investment costs, the planning process and opposition from families and local communities.

Iain Watt, principal sustainability adviser at Forum for the Future, said, “We’d like to see a planning and policy regime that does more to support farm-scale renewables; better financing arrangements; a revamped grid that makes it easy for rural communities to sell their electricity; and an established market for farm-grown green power. We think we can achieve all that and more through coordinated action.”

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

One of the big disappointments with the Coalition from an economic perspective is its evident inability to articulate and enact a meaningful agenda for “supply-side reform”. Supply-side economics is just a poshed up term for a fairly simple idea – that governments can help the economy grow by removing the disincentives to business expansion, or, in other words, by staying out of the way and ensuring adequate, affordable infrastructure.

Yet as the Government wrestles, often ineffectually, with the deficit, the banking system, the schools programme and welfare reform, Britain’s numerous other supply-side deficiencies have gone largely unaddressed.

The Government promised to reduce the regulatory burden on business; in fact it has gone up. It also promised to make the tax system simpler, but it has become more complex.

We should, by now, have been well on the way to at least the promise of overall reductions in the tax burden on the economy; in the event, further tax rises the other side of the election now seem a certainty. Barriers to housing and other forms of development were supposed to have been removed, yet confronted by vested interest, ministers have backed off.

Nowhere is this lack of progress in establishing the building blocks for a more productive and prosperous economy more apparent than in energy policy, which for decades has never been anything other than a hopeless mess but is now in danger of transmogrifying into an unmitigated disaster.

Local councils are set to lose their say on whether controversial shale gas harvesting goes on in their area as new planning guidelines were published last week. After allegedly causing unusual seismic activity in the United States, campaigners have vehemently opposed exploiting shales gas reserves in the British countryside, and so far have been able to focus on local councils to monitor what activity takes place in their area.

However, new planning guidelines will strip councils of the ability to investigated potential fracking-related issues – in particular, potential impact on seismic activity 1×1.trans Government lifts Fracking Controls in Dash for Shale Gas

and ground water contamination as well as risks of flaring and venting – before granting planning permission to companies looking to establish new wells.

Cuadrilla is moving machinery into place to start drilling an exploratory oil well near the village of Balcombe in Sussex within the next few days, in its first UK venture outside Lancashire.

The company, which is the only business yet to have attempted shale gas fracking in the UK, is hoping to receive a permit from the Environment Agency by the end of this week, that would allow it to go ahead with its first exploratory well in Sussex. Drilling rigs were being moved into position on Tuesday, in anticipation of a green light, after the Environment Agency issued it with a draft permit.

A spokesman for Cuadrilla said the company had already conducted tests on the underground water aquifer in the Balcombe area, and was reassured that drilling there would not cause problems. The company has as yet no plans to frack in Sussex, however. Fracking is the process of blasting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure at dense shale rocks, opening up tiny fissures that release the bubbles of methane trapped within them, that can be collected at the surface through pipes.

Cuadrilla believes that the rock beneath Balcombe, called micrite, may yield oil without the need to frack, and that drilling a vertical then a horizontal well on the site may be enough to release the liquids and allow them to be captured. However, a final decision is some way off. The company must drill an exploratory well first to establish if oil is there and can be extracted, and then if experts find fracking is necessary to release the oil, Cuadrilla may try to do that later.

Drilling at the site has been delayed for about a month by the need for the company to undergo a public consultation on whether it should be granted a licence to generate mining waste, which requires a special permit. The company may also in future need a permit for radioactive materials, but can drill without that. The Environment Agency has decided the company does not need a separate permit for the effect of its operations on ground water.

The British Geological Survey estimates of huge potential reserves of shale gas in the north-west are being hailed as key to the UK’s energy future (Report, 28 June). But we must be wary of false promises. The successful exploitation of these reserves is not a given, and the environmental and community impacts of extraction will be substantial.

Shale has the potential to bring in substantial tax revenue but is this really the long-term solution to our energy needs? There is plenty of research to show that the marginal price of gas will not be affected. At best, energy prices may rise more slowly than they might otherwise.

Surely, in jumping from one unsustainable energy source to the next, we are just storing up problems for the future, when supplies will be tighter and the risks of insecurity greater? Given the choice between a very large hole in the ground, and clean, renewable energy with fantastic demand-side management and energy-efficient technologies, a combined resource that won’t expire and will leave positive long-lasting annuity, I know which I would choose.

Juliet Davenport

CEO & founder, Good Energy

• Luckily for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which commissioned it, the British Geological Survey was able to draw upon memoirs written before the latest wave of early retirements and redundancies degraded its expertise. So while Wigan, Manchester, Preston and Rochdale are covered by state-of-the-art 1:50,000 maps based on fresh 1:10,000 surveys, when it comes to selecting potential drilling sites, the coast from Bootle to Fleetwood (mantled with peat and other, often vulnerable, superficial deposits) has only outdated, sometimes Victorian, surveys. The same goes for much of Cheshire and Yorkshire underlain by the Bowland shales at suitable depths. Furthermore, with a third of Britain not covered by anything approaching modern standards, now that systematic geological mapping is ending, for the lack of a few million a year, future governments will make expensive planning mistakes. Unforeseen ground conditions are often used as an excuse to cover up inadequate site investigations.

When it comes to the long-term disposal of high-level nuclear waste, another decade has been wasted during which the BGS could have been funded to explore in depth geologically stable areas such as Hertfordshire and Suffolk with no foreseeable deep mineral potential.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

As the British and American governments signal their renewed commitments to nuclear power as a clean, abundant source of energy that can fuel high growth economies, a new scientific study of worldwide uranium production warns of an imminent supply gap that will result in spiralling fuel costs in the next decades.

The study, based on an analysis of global deposit depletion profiles from past and present uranium mining, forecasts a global uranium mining peak of approximately 58 kilotonnes (kton) by 2015, declining gradually to 54 ktons by 2025, after which production would drop more steeply to at most 41 ktons around 2030. The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, concludes:

“This amount will not be sufficient to fuel the existing and planned nuclear power plants during the next 10–20 years. In fact, we find that it will be difficult to avoid supply shortages even under a slow 1%/ year worldwide nuclear energy phase-out scenario up to 2025. We thus suggest that a worldwide nuclear energy phase-out is in order.”

But just last week, in response to dire warnings of power blackouts within two years – the same time uranium production will peak according to this study – the UK government announced £10 billion in financial guarantees to the nuclear power industry. Now Energy Secretary Ed Davey promises, “Prices aren’t going to spike: the lights are going to stay on because we’ve got a very well thought-through plan.”

The decision reinforces the government’s focus on nuclear power as central to its national energy strategy. According to the government’s high-nuclear scenario, nuclear power could provide 86% of the UK’s electricity at 75GW of capacity by 2050.

The new study acknowledges the dawn of a new production period in the last five years, during which a total of 250 ktons or uranium has been produced, but points out that increasingly producers must extract lower grade uranium which generates less energy than higher grades. On average, it finds, only 50-70% of initial uranium resource estimates can be extracted.

The UK is not on track to meet its 2020 European renewables targets, according to the European Renewable Energy Council EREC.According to the annual update of EREC’s ‘Keep on Track’ project, the UK lies 25th out of 27 member states for renewables contribution.The research work focused on eleven EU Member States; Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.Among these, only three Austria, Italy, Sweden are expected to meet their 2020 targets. The consortium has serious doubts as to whether Bulgaria, Germany, Greece and Portugal will be able to meet theirs and Belgium, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom are expected to miss their targets altogether.In addition, preliminary figures from the Renewable Energy Association REA, show that the UK is the only member state in the project which did not achieve its first interim target under the directive by the end of 2011 4.04% for 2011 to 2012.The report identifies the barriers to the development of renewable energy sources RES.In the UK’s case they are listed as: Low confidence in the market due to mixed signals from the Government, uncertainty over the future of support measures and intense pressure to reduce costs.• The lack of a clear plan and measures to support distributed generation. Uncertainty that grid extensions to capture remote resource will be made, or made in time.• Obtaining planning permission is becoming increasingly difficult for some technologies, not helped by mixed signals from Government ministers.• Developers and funders are concerned that the necessary quantity and quality of biomass fuel may not be available, at least at the current price, over the life of a biomass power plant project.• Uncertainty over the future of support measures discourages companies from entering the sector and acquiring the necessary skills to undertake installations.EREC President Rainer Hinrichs-Rahlwes said: “It’s plain sailing for the 21 member states who have already achieved their 2012 targets in 2011.

Monday, 22 July 2013

George Osborne has infuriated environmentalists by announcing big tax breaks for the fracking industry in a bid to kickstart a shale gas revolution that could enhance Britain’s energy security but also increase its carbon emissions.

The Treasury has set a 30% tax rate for onshore shale gas production. That compares with a top rate of 62% on new North Sea oil operations and up to 81% for older offshore fields.

So far, no shale gas has been produced in Britain, but exploratory drilling is under way and the British Geological Survey recently whetted prospectors’ appetites by revealing there could be huge resources waiting to be unlocked, possibly enough to supply the country for 25 years.

“Shale gas is a resource with huge potential to broaden the UK’s energy mix,” said the chancellor. “We want to create the right conditions for industry to explore and unlock that potential in a way that allows communities to share in the benefits.

“This new tax regime, which I want to make the most generous for shale in the world, will contribute to that. I want Britain to be a leader of the shale gas revolution – because it has the potential to create thousands of jobs and keep energy bills low for millions of people.”

But the generous allowances were condemned by environmental groups worried about the chemicals used in fracking and fearful that burning more gas will make it impossible to hit carbon reduction targets designed to mitigate climate change.

It also comes after a survey showed that nearly 80% of those who were polled believed that the UK should reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

Lawrence Carter, a Greenpeace energy campaigner, said: “The chancellor is telling anyone who will listen that UK shale gas is set to be an economic miracle, yet he’s had to offer the industry sweetheart tax deals just to reassure them that fracking would be profitable.

“Experts from energy regulator Ofgem to Deutsche Bank and the company in receipt of this tax break, Cuadrilla, admit that it won’t reduce energy prices for consumers. Instead we’re likely to see the industrialisation of tracts of the British countryside, gas flaring in the home counties and a steady stream of trucks carrying contaminated water down rural lanes.”

In among a raft of new infrastructure spending announced by the UK government in the wake of last week’s spending review, it was revealed that the cost estimates for the HS2 high-speed train line had been revised significantly upward. According to the new projections, HS2 will be completed in 2033 at a total cost of £42.6bn for construction and £7.5bn for trains – a total of just over £50bn.

What is immediately striking about this figure is that it’s about the same as estimates of how much it will cost to develop nuclear fusion to the point at which it could supply affordable electricity to the grid.

Fusion power has the potential to revolutionise the entire world’s energy production. It could dramatically reduce the world’s carbon emissions (a fusion reactor emits no carbon dioxide), provide energy independence to any nation with access to a coastline (since there is millions of years’ worth of fusion fuel in the world’s oceans), and do all this with no danger of meltdown or long-lived radioactive waste.

Alternatively, we could use our £50bn to shave 35 minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham.

Whatever you think of the arguments for and against HS2, estimating its economic benefits is a fraught business because it’s so difficult to predict how it will fit into the UK’s broader transport infrastructure by the time it has been completed. By contrast, the economic, environmental and social ramifications of almost limitless clean energy have the potential to far outweigh those of a new stretch of high-speed train line connecting a handful of cities on a small island.

But can we really have fusion for a few tens of billions of pounds? Obviously, no one knows for sure. If we knew exactly what remains to be done, we wouldn’t need to spend all that money on research to find out. However, there are reasons to be optimistic: we’ve got fusion working, albeit fleetingly, at the JET reactor in Oxfordshire, and consequently we have a good idea of what issues need to be overcome to progress from experimental devices to working power plants.

The Electricity Storage Network (ESN) has warned that the benefits of the burgeoning UK solar industry will be lost unless effective energy storage technology is developed and deployed.

The ESN believes that, despite the UK installing more than 500MW of solar in the first quarter of 2013, the UK is falling behind its European neighbours. In Germany the government has set aside €25 million to help incentivize energy storage solutions alongside solar arrays.

Speaking ahead of the upcoming conference Energy Storage UK ’13, Anthony Price, ESN’s director said: “The opportunity is now. If the government does not support the use of storage as part of the solution to meet our power shortfall, we will lose this opportunity, and live to regret it.

“What is low cost now will take us down power’s one-way street. It will be difficult and costly to reverse. Our plans for the Smart Grid show we need storage and we must seize this opportunity now.”

The intermittent nature of renewable generation provides challenges for the National Grid, which is sometimes forced to turn to polluting backup generators if demand outsrips supply. Economic and efficient storage technologies would allow for a fast-acting and responsive grid system that is truly low-carbon.

David Cameron was accused on Friday of giving evasive answers about the Tories’ chief election strategist as the Labour party highlighted Lynton Crosby’s role in promoting shale gas companies in his native Australia.

As a cross-party committee of MPs accused the government of “utterly unacceptable” behaviour over the preparation of a new bill on lobbyists, Labour warned of a “lobbying scandal” in Downing Street after George Osborne unveiled tax breaks for the fracking industry championed by Crosby.

Jon Trickett, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, pointed out that the lobbyist’s firm Crosby Textor represents the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association. One of its members, Dart Energy, has a UK subsidiary, Dart Europe Limited, which has an interest in the Bowland Shale site in Lancashire and Yorkshire, which contains 1,300tn cubic feet of gas.

The chancellor announced on Friday that the government would set a 30% tax rate for onshore shale gas production, compared with the top rate of 62% for North Sea oil operations. Andrew Pendleton, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said it was a “disgrace” to offer tax breaks to “polluting energy firms that threaten our communities and environment”.

The fracking industry association in Australia, which has been advised by Crosby’s firm, has been highly critical of environmentalists. Stedman Ellis, the chief operating officer for the Western Region of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, told the Australian newspaper last month: “The opportunity provided by shale gas is too important to be jeopardised by political scare campaigns run by activist groups.”

Trickett said that Crosby’s role in advising the fracking industry raised further questions about the man who will run the Tories’ 2015 general election campaign. Cameron is already facing pressure after refusing to say on at least 12 occasions, according to Trickett, whether he discussed government plans to abandon plain cigarette packaging with Crosby, whose firm has advised the tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Trickett said: “David Cameron’s failure to come clean over his relationship with Lynton Crosby has created a situation where his decisions are open to question. Whether it’s tobacco, alcohol, lobbying and now fracking, we need to know what role lobbying has played in deciding what our prime minister does.

Friday, 19 July 2013

The “big six” power provider claimed energy company profits were not to blame for rising bills and said consumers should know the true cost of government investment in greener forms of energy production and efficiency programmes, which it said will be the main driver behind a hike in bills from £1,247 today to £1,487 by the end of the decade.

Paul Massara, npower chief executive, said: “Government policy is rightly delivering the transformation we need to address the UK’s poor housing stock and encourage investment required in new infrastructure – but achieving these aspirations comes at a cost, and this is what needs to be clearly communicated to consumers.

“The fact is that if people don’t take action to reduce energy consumption, their bills are going to rise.

“If we can’t be upfront about that, we won’t be able to convince people to make big changes to be more energy efficient.”

RWE npower said support for low-carbon technologies alone would add £82 to the average energy bill by the end of the decade, up from £34 this year, and £12 in 2007.

The cost of investing in low-carbon power sources accounts for less than 3% of the average household bill, but this will rise to 5.5% by the end of this decade, it added.

Meanwhile, energy profits have risen from £18 on the average dual fuel bill in 2007 to £59 this year and npower predicts that profits will rise to £71 in 2020, staying constant at around 5% of the bill.

Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change, said of the npower report: “Global gas prices, not green policies, have been primarily pushing up energy bills.

“That is why it is vital we crack on with securing investment in a diverse energy mix that includes renewables and new nuclear, as well as gas.

“We must also continue to drive up the energy efficiency of the nation’s housing stock, particularly the homes of the most vulnerable households.”

Hydrogen makes an extraordinarily efficient and clean fuel. Three times as energy-efficient as petrol, Nasa used it to power its space shuttles. It can be used to generate electricity and only produces water as a byproduct.

And yet, scientists are struggling to scale up hydrogen production. Ironically, given hydrogen’s green potential, the cheapest and most viable sources are hydrocarbon-based compounds such as natural gas. But liberating hydrogen from fossil fuels creates carbon emissions that outweigh any environmental advantages.

Percival Zhang, professor of bioengineering at Virginia Tech Institute, says that the problem is not just technical but that, sometimes, “scientists have poor imaginations”. And so he wants to try something different: why not take advantage of an abundant natural resource, sugar? “Our idea is that simple,” he says. “We call the project Sweet Hydrogen.”

Biomass – trees, plants and other waste vegetable matter – is an abundant and rapidly renewable source of starch and sugars, that is nowadays used to produce biofuels. Exploiting biomass to produce sugar, and turning that sugar into hydrogen, could lead a change in global energy production.

In 2011, the US consumed 134bn gallons (507bn litres) of gasoline, but “with our technology, just 700m pounds [317,500 tonnes] of biomass would be enough to replace the whole yearly [gasoline] production,” says Zhang. The last official assessments estimate the availability of crop residues for biomass in the US to be about 157m tonnes per year.

Moreover, recent projections find that by 2030 the total biomass resources (coming from crop residues but also from forests, waste and energy crops) available for energy production will be close to 680m tonnes per year.

“So far there have been two different ways to produce hydrogen,” says Zhang. “Either you obtain it by heating fossil fuels, such as methane, or by separating water into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis.” The first solution produces emissions, while the latter is very expensive. “And you still need fossil fuels to perform electrolysis.”